Pasta and Wine

Leftover pasta is the greatest thing ever invented by man. Just saying.

So, life. Life is coming along quite nicely, at this moment. So far I’ve only had one moment of serious loneliness for home, which was last night – pretty good for being away for a week and a half! It’s been ripe full of weird things, I must admit. Like my car getting broken into back home – what’s up with that? Poor Chinsei, but more importantly, poor Steve for getting his laptop stolen! I hope things work out alright with that. Other than that, not much has happened. Classes have been rather uneven, with my professor becoming sick; yesterday we were split up and put into different classes, today we had a substitute who was pretty damn awesome. We’ll see how this continues. Also today, we had an “excursion” – which was not described to be greatly interesting, but it ended up being a lot of fun. We went out into the countryside, which I am now greatly in love with. We went to a petit chateau/vignoble, which had a huge garden, a puppy with huge paws and ears, and some of the sweetest wine I’ve ever tasted. Also on the excursion was Jeanne Français Mauriac’s house (I’m sorry, I probably spelled that horribly) which was fairly uninteresting except for the view and the area it was in. So pretty; it seemed like a pity to return back to Pessac. Other interesting things in life – I seem to have fairly consistent, regular internet out in the forest/at the café by the school buildings. Trying to get on around eight my time every day, eleven AM back in California. Go on aim/facebook and try and catch me! Or just e-mail/Facebook me. I’ll respond.

Americanization is ridiculous. Have I mentioned that? In many ways France is inexplicably different than America, but in other ways it’s not so different. I look through magazines and see Robert Pattison (or whatever his name is), Miley Cyrus, Angelina Joli… Kids have Spongebob and Spiderman on their shirts… hell, even Dora the Explorer is here! It’s really quite frightening. I’ve seen Dominos and a ridiculous amount of McDonalds, but other than that the food stores are all different. (Food here is amazing, when I allow myself to eat out. And the wine… yum.) There are a lot of American clothes stores with European fashions, and European prices… window shopping drives me insane because the clothes are just so nifty, but I don’t really have the money, nor the fashion sense, for that. I do greatly miss peanut butter and mac and cheese, though. Why can’t those be here?

Mornings suck. It’s like 8am French all over again, since I get up at 7am and shower every day. Except now I don’t have Rosa’s happy to keep me going when my brain hasn’t turned on yet. It especially doesn’t help that the sun isn’t rising until between 7:30 and 8, which just throws me off entirely. Other random things: I officially paid my first month’s rent yesterday, even though I’m not moving in until the 11th. It’s kinda cool, paying my own rent, yet at the same time it makes me very sad to watch six hundred Euros (half for rent, half for a security deposit) be pulled out of my bank account and straight into the hands of my landlady. Sigh.

So I’m looking at places that I want to go visit in my four months here. There’s a week-long break from October 24th-November 1st in which I am definitely going to go somewhere (assuming I’m not taking any classes in the school with no break – which I hope not to), with or without a companion. Any suggestions? I’m kind of thinking Italy, but I’m not set on anywhere yet. Other places that I’m looking at going are Paris (naturally, and sooner rather than later) and London with Cally, along with several places in France depending on who’s going where.

Hm… No other interesting musings that I can think of. Still going strong – I think my French is improving! Woohoo! Will report back in several days. Looking forward to this weekend.